Here are instructions to put a google maps on your phone for offline use.
1. Go to http://www.mapcacher.com/ and select the region that you want, select zoom level 0 to 15, click generate, and download the .map file.
2. install and run gMapMaker. search for gMapMaker-setup.exe – download is second bullet point down.
3. Browse to the .map file and select a folder to download to. Wait for the program to finish downloading the map. (1000 files will take about a minute and 4MB of memory ntfs) (You will see it connecting and retrieving files.)
4. Copy the folder to a memory location on the phone.
5. Install –> mgmaps.jar <– onto your mobile phone and run.
6. On your phone, select the options menu, press settings (keypad 7), goto map browsing and browse for the folder mgmapscache inside the folder with the map data. Once you have browsed the Mgcache folder it should go back to the screen.
7. Now, press back, press menu and exit the program to save changes, and run the program again.
8. Useful to know – press keypad 5 to enter toggle joystick mode, and use the num keys 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 to move the map. press* and # to zoom in and out resp. out of joystick mode press 4 to put a placemark, in settings it is possible to rotate the screen too, and choose which map to use etc…
9. Now every time you load this program on your phone, it will load the current map you have selected, so there is no need to repeat any of these previous steps if you are viewing the same map.
I tested by making a world map in google maps (very hard to select polygonic regions on the mapcacher site!), and it took 3.52 MB. The zoom level was 0 -9. The problem is the file system of my phone k800i, is the memory card m2, which is in fat/fat32, which means it has a minimum cluster size, (due to the number of files) this means it takes up a lot more room than is necessary. This means the folder will take up more space on the memory card than it states onthe folder size. It is a good idea to only select and download the minimum region and zoom level that is necessary to minimise the space taken.
Thanks for reading. Hope this helps you on saving mobile roaming charges and allowing you google maps on your phone!
Some screenshots here:
